The Current That Drags the Unwary
by Salazarfalcon
Summary: Somehow, Loki pretending to be subservient was creepier than the outright belligerence, and Tony didn't really see that one coming, right along with having it out with Pepper and acquiring a new houseguest all in the same day. On the other hand, Peter Parker hasn't slept in three days. Part two of Heart of the Magpie.


The Current That Drags the Unwary

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Summary: Somehow, Loki pretending to be subservient was creepier than the outright belligerence, and Tony didn't really see that one coming, right along with having it out with Pepper and acquiring a new houseguest. On the other hand, Peter Parker hasn't slept in three days. Part two in **Heart of the Magpie**.

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Disclaimer: Nope, nope, nope.

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AN: Hey there! This is part two of **Heart of the Magpie**. I'm just going to assume that if you're reading this that you've read **The Knife in the Dark**, which you should most definitely read if you haven't before starting this otherwise this will make very little sense. Even less than it already does!

Anyway, to address a popular question that many reviewers asked me: will this be slash?

Frankly, I'm not going to tell you. Whether there is slash or not, romance or not, this story is not a romance. I don't consider it to be a romantic one in the slightest; it's heavily plot and character and action-driven, there's no finish line where the characters kiss and then the curtain falls, the end, story's over.

The presence of romance or slash shouldn't influence your opinion of the story as a whole and I find it just slightly insulting that the presence or absence is so crucial to whether or not you read this story. I find it even more insulting that I've been PM'd by people telling me not to make it slash, otherwise they won't read it, that their readership is so important to me that I'll sacrifice plots and plans to suit the whims of others. I find it rude and extremely offensive to me as a person and as a writer. So I'm not saying. If you've read **Truthfully**, you'll know that I lean toward the side of subtext even in gen, so as to whether this will develop into a romance at all, you'll just have to read and find out. If it's enough to turn you off, then I clearly haven't done my job as a writer, and you all know where the back button is.

That said, I apologize for seeming testy, but it's an issue I've had in more than one fandom and haven't addressed just yet, so I'm sorry for you guys getting the brunt of it. I try to stay polite and upbeat most of the time in my author's notes but sometimes…yeah. Most of you are perfectly lovely and I adore you and seriously, I hope you continue to enjoy this if I haven't scared you off yet! Please regard me kindly.

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Loki was pacing around the mansion like a tiger, clad in a pair of pants and a t-shirt that he'd filched from Tony's drawers.

This place was like nowhere he'd ever seen before, all slick white lines and open sunspaces and glass windows, rooms upon rooms and twining staircases and a bright, welcoming blue pool that overlooked the ocean. The entire home was precarious, perched upon a cliff face, and a lesser man would have been at least mildly intimidated by the scale, the space.

The sheer everything of it.

Loki was no lesser man and he was of Asgard, and this place –while lavish— held no candle to the golden city of home and yet, he found himself occupied by mapping the entirety of it out in his mind, every spotless corner and every half-empty bottle of alcohol that resided on the shelf.

He'd seen the outside that first day after being summoned, had traced and retraced the perimeter until he'd memorized it, because that was simply what Loki did. Loki did and Loki learned and Loki _knew_ until it was like he had never not known such things. It also didn't hurt that such things tended to be frustrating to those around him, because they never realized that his knowledge didn't simply come from thin air. It was all well and good to be known for knowing everything, at least until it became clear that that knowledge came from dedication and bull-headedness. Then it was merely a hindrance, no matter how many lives his precautions had saved.

It was frustrating, it seemed, to everyone but Tony Stark.

Tony Stark, who was parked in front of the coffee table with one of his toys and a wreck of tools and wires spread out around him, Tony Stark who was watching Loki's prowling with a look of amusement like he understood exactly what he was doing.

"I thought you could magic clothing," he said finally, eyeing the stolen shirt, and Loki smoothed out nonexistent wrinkles.

"I most certainly can," Loki replied, "But if I am to be in your company for some unknown period of time, it is appropriate that I possess some form of clothing other than that of Asgard, is it not? Unless, of course, you prefer that I stroll about in the nude."

"You magic'd them the first time," Tony accused and pointedly ignored the last bit to fiddle with his screwdriver, "What's the problem?"

Loki sighed. Oh, this was one of those _magic_ things, Tony decided, that was the _oh, this mortal knows nothing about anything_ sigh. He knew that sigh well.

"No problem if I wasn't relying on you to supply me with a good chunk of my power," he said loftily with just a touch of bite, "Anything I 'magic', as you like to say, comes directly from me of which a good fraction, at this point, comes from you. It is a hindrance to maintain and waste my power on trivialities, considering that a good deal of my resources is already being allocated to more important things." What those things were, Tony was most certainly going to be asking about sometime soon. "I suppose I could always simply _summon_ clothing in the proper size," Loki gestured sharply to his pant legs, which were several inches higher than they should be, "But that would be stealing and while I don't have an issue with it, I suppose that you likely would."

Uh, yeah, Tony would probably definitely have an issue with that, mostly because Loki looked like the kind of guy who had expensive taste, and he didn't really want to be talking down people up in arms over six-hundred dollar shirts mysteriously going missing.

Not that Tony didn't appreciate his own six-hundred dollar shirts, even if Pepper didn't consider wearing them in the lab and getting grease all over them appreciating. Tony appreciated them plenty! It was a dirty job but someone had to do it.

Loki was still leveling him with Disdainful Stare #8 and Tony shook his head, setting down what he was doing and rummaging around in his pocket.

"Look, I'm busy for probably about the next…oh, I don't know, ever or so. Ah-ha!" He found what he was looking for and flicked it to Loki, who caught it with some confusion. Green eyes narrowed as he examined the matte black card in his hands. "Take this and poof yourself somewhere to get some clothes. We're in the home of high-end shopping! Go wild."

There was no possible way that he could spend more on clothes than Tony spent on about everything else, what could it hurt? Besides, it'd certainly be interesting to see what he came back with.

"You're surprisingly blasé about sending me out on my own," Loki said with deliberate delicacy, a lightness in his tone that masked something that might have been curiosity. "A bit short-sighted, don't you think? I could get lost." Tony gave an unattractive snort and shrugged.

"Oh please, like you possibly think for a second that I'm buying your 'innocent and unworldly servant' act you've got going on here. You're memorizing every detail of my house; don't even pretend that you haven't gotten down every inch of the area." Loki didn't even bother looking ashamed, but he did look rather pleased at the observation, his body uncoiling and relaxing at the words. "Besides, it's not like you can't just track me if you _do_ get lost. Go spend too much of my money, have fun, maybe bring a couple of ladies home."

Tony was expecting more of an immediate departure, not for Loki to suddenly be much closer, to reach out and straighten his collar even though the shirt he was wearing didn't even have one.

"As you command," Loki nearly purred and stepped back, smiling crookedly for just a second, and then he was gone as if he'd never been there. Tony gaped at the place where he'd been standing,

"Oh, of course. As I command, my _ass_."

* * *

So, Tony had been totally wrong about exactly how much Loki could spend in a span of- he checked his watch- four hours. Four hours later, Loki dropped (quite literally) back into that white mansion on the side of a cliff, bags hanging off of his elbows in spade and a box in his arms.

"Sweet god," Tony muttered, wide-eyed and gaping, and it was with a gleeful snap of his fingers that even _more _bags appeared at Loki's feet.

And more boxes.

And…

A bag of cat food?

Tony gave that box in Loki's arms a closer look and saw with immense wariness that it possessed holes. Rather large holes, actually. Rather large holes that a paw was insistently poking out of.

"No," was all he said, "Nope. Not happening." Loki set his bags down and approached, folding his legs up underneath him to set the box on the floor, unfolding the top and pulling out…A very large, all-black fluffy thing. A very large, all-black fluffy thing that had demon yellow eyes and one fang sticking out of its mouth and a massive tail that went for days. Oh, and its ears were uneven. "No." Fuck cats.

"You requested that I bring back a lady," Loki informed him in such a way that made Tony want to clock him.

"Yeah, so not the kind of pussy I had in mind."

Loki ignored the resentment and irritation in his voice –ignored it!— and scooped up the giant monster into his arms, half-punting the box away. It just lolled there like there was no place it would rather be, letting Loki squish its paws between his fingers and rub the fluff on its stomach. This was disgusting.

"Why would you do this?" Tony lamented. Loki sent him some sort of affronted look like _he'd_ been the one bring home some demonic thing without asking first.

"The woman at the shelter told me that black cats do not get adopted often and are often destroyed because they cannot find homes. She gave me a discount for her," Loki trailed off and made a chucking noise with his tongue, dipped his head down to brush his nose to the top of that fluffy head.

"You _would_ be a cat person."

"If I am going to remain here," Loki said tartly, "Then I insist upon having some form of company that I can tolerate."

Because clearly, that wasn't Tony.

Well, fine.

Tony didn't like him either.

"How did you even end up at the animal shelter anyway?" Tony couldn't help asking in the end, because he was a curious dumbass, "I sent you out to buy clothes. …A lot of clothes, apparently." Loki shrugged and shifted his cat in his arms.

"There was some sort of event going on near the shopping district. Cats everywhere."

Tony couldn't resist side-eyeing him a little and refrained from mentioning that he could see the resemblance. Snippy, no sense of boundaries, and horrifically smug all the time, Loki must have felt like he'd found his people. As it was, cat-like Loki ignored the telling stare and just continued talking as if he hadn't noticed in the first place.

"No one wanted this one," and there was something funny in Loki's voice now, something tight and unhappy and bordering on despair, "No one else was going to take her. And I have food for her and something called a litter box and a collar with a bell. She even has something in her to find her if she gets lost."

Aw, fuck.

Fuck you, Loki.

Tony rolled his eyes and reached out a hand to prod gently at the cat. It seemed huge but upon poking at it, it was actually quite skinny, all fur and no bulk; he could feel every rib. In response to his poking, the cat rolled over in Loki's arms and flopped onto his shoulder. For all of his bluster about clothing, Loki didn't seem to mind the claws that dug into the fabric at his shoulders.

"I know," he told his new pet, "He's an unmannerly savage, but he shan't hurt you. He is an idiot, but he is not cruel." And Tony stilled at that because up to then he was pretty sure that Loki thought that he was the (magically retarded) devil incarnate and that he was good for nothing other than dispensing money and food, but apparently…not quite.

"If it gets into my lab, you're taking it right back where it came from," Tony threatened, knowing full well that Loki's monster wasn't going anywhere regardless of what it did. Despite the authoritative tone, Loki's response was but an enigmatic, curving smile that meant absolutely nothing good.

"You know," he said conversationally, "Cats are extremely good conductors of magic. They are more sensitive to the ebb and flow than most of you mortals, and some of your sorcerers even keep them around to store and amplify their own power."

"….are you seriously trying to sell me on your cat by it saying it's a magical lightning rod?"

"Tis a distinct possibility. Is it working?"

Tony grumbled a little and wondered just why he'd thought that it would be a good idea to try and summon a god for kicks, because now said god and said god's new cat were now living in his house and revving up to be a giant pain in the ass. Both of them.

Still…

He could use all the help he could get, especially if Captain America had only been playing around and trounced him without a problem. Though really, it all could have been avoided if Loki hadn't decided to be a fickle little shit. Still, Tony was quite familiar with his own escapades of being a fickle little shit (some of them just last week) and he supposed that Loki probably had better reasons for it than he had at the time.

Maybe.

Either way, he should probably at least pretend to be the bigger man , even if the last thing he wanted was some beast wandering around his house, getting hair everywhere and destroying everything he loved. That was what cats did, after all.

For a moment, Tony just watched Loki coax the cat's claws from his shoulders, scratching gently at her head and ears, stroking her shoulders until he managed to untangle her and hold her comfortably again. He'd never seen Loki be even half as gentle with anything thus far, nowhere near as carefully as he was treating the animal in his arms. Honestly, up until just then it hadn't occurred to him that Loki might have just brought her home because he liked her, not to be a pain in the ass.

Which it still was, but a little better than if he was just trying to be an asshole. It wouldn't have been the first time.

"What are you going to call her?" he asked eventually, realizing when one of Loki's dark brows quirked upwards that he'd inadvertently stopped calling his new pet an it. Instead of calling him on it, however, Loki made a quiet noise of consideration under his breath and tangled his fingers in long, dark fur.

"I believe that I shall call her Sindr."

"Cinder?"

"Sindr," Loki clarified as if he could tell that Tony was spelling it wrong, "A flame that burns even when snuffed; the spark that continues when the fire goes out—"

"Sup, Sinny," Tony cut him off and patted the fluffy monster on the head; said fluffy monster rewarded him with a swat of her paw. Claws sheathed, at least. Small favors. Tony glared at it—her, he supposed. She had a name, at least he could give her a gender. Maybe. Maybe not, if it turned out that she was as evil as her owner.

"Do not call her that! She has a name and it's lovely," Loki protested with a scowl.

Sindr swished her tail and batted (much more gently than she had to Tony) at Loki's arm and he obligingly set her down on the floor. Much more obligingly than he did anything else he was asked. As the cat began to wander about Tony's house (it had better not be covered in hair in three days, otherwise he'd make Loki vacuum it himself), Loki got to his feet and gathered up everything that was very clearly not clothing, the bag of food and a set of bowls and a few other things.

"Come, Sindr, I will show you where your food will be," he said and began walking off towards the kitchen.

"You know that cats don't _actually_ listen to you, right?" Tony asked just as Sindr trotted after him, tail straight up in the air.

"You were saying?" Loki called back and Tony didn't even have to see him to know that he was smirking. Bastard.

"She just hears her food!"

"Of course. Whatever helps you sleep at night."

Tony crossed his arms over his chest and glowered, but it wasn't long before the look softened slightly and eventually dropped off. He could hear Loki talking even from here, not loudly enough to hear what exactly he was saying, but loudly enough to make it clear that he was neither shouting for Tony's benefit nor whispering for his own. It just _was_. Just words and a soft voice that sounded on the verge of smiling.

Tony shook his head and broke through the reverie, because he just didn't do that.

Tony Stark didn't do reveries.

"Don't forget about your clothes too!" he hollered and there was an exaggerated snap of the fingers from the kitchen and Loki's bags vanished from the floor as if they'd never been there. "Cute. Real cute." Idly, he scratched an itch that was as fleeting as anything, annoying and niggling but ultimately harmless.

"Not to interrupt," a cultured voice said with the classic hint of long-suffering, "But Miss Potts is here to see you. Apparently she doesn't appreciate your sudden and abrupt need to check on your lab this morning when she needed you to sign those forms. What a shock."

Tony groaned and dropped his head to the coffee table.

"What exactly possessed me to give you sarcasm? Why would I do something so stupid?"

JARVIS didn't get a chance to reply because a second later, the door was flung open and a very familiar, torrentially furious redhead was striding into his house.

Tony opened his mouth to greet her; Pepper opened hers to start yelling…

Both of them froze.

The itch that he'd ignored became a full on burn and Tony was reminded of the previous encounter with Captain America; it hadn't felt like this but similar enough to be familiar, and something squirmed underneath his skin. Pepper hadn't moved out of the doorway and was instead just staring at him, slightly slack-jawed in a way that he knew meant nothing good. There was only silence from the kitchen; Loki's crooning had tapered off and even the cat, who'd cheeped once or twice, seemed to not exist.

Good.

Tony didn't need that little shit-stirrer making his life even more difficult. Loki, either.

"Hi, Pep," he said eventually with a waggle of his eyebrows, "What's shakin', bacon?" There was a distinct possibility that maybe he shouldn't have this kind of conversation with him already on the ground (survival skills: A+++) and Tony got to his feet.

Pepper Potts was not amused and that was all the invitation she needed to have her stalking up to him like some sort of crazy tiger, reaching out to grip him by the collar and drag him closer until they were practically nose to nose. She was tense and furious and Tony was sure that she was going to actually shake him back and forth (and he'd let her, too, because for all that he made _her_ life hell on a semi-regular basis, he let her get away with murder), but she didn't in the end, just held him in an iron fist and glared.

"What in the hell is this?"

"The hell is _this_?" Tony sputtered in indignation, "The hell is _this?!_" he gestured emphatically to her general vicinity with flailing arms and jazz hands. Pepper released him and crossed her arms over her chest, a flash of hurt sliding over her eyes before being replaced with the more familiar irritation.

"I don't need to defend myself to you," she said finally in a low tone that wasn't what he was expecting. She was angry and she should at least be raising her voice a little. Oh, she could take his shenanigans with a straight face and little more than a twitching eyebrow most of the time but he'd feel a little bit more comfortable about the whole thing if she shouted. This was…this was just cold and he'd rather she be angry than sound hurt like she did right then.

"Well, I don't need to defend myself to _you_," Tony retorted snidely, and her left eyebrow twitched.

"Oh my god, you are a child," Pepper snapped back, all sharp lines and edges that almost reminded him of Loki in a snit. The difference, of course, was that he knew that Pepper held some sort of affection for him; this made her both less and more dangerous, in different ways. "This isn't—what the hell even possessed you? Why would you even think for a second that this would be a good idea—"

"Because you've clearly been so honest," Tony interrupted and reached out a hand to tweak the lapel of her immaculate jacket, "How long have we known each other, Pep? Feels like forever," Now it was his turn to glare, because something about this was legitimately painful and not just frustrating, "And not once do I ever remember anything like, _Hey Tony, did I ever tell you that I'm a mage?_ coming out of your mouth."

"Because _that_ would have been so helpful," Pepper backed away from him and the burn receded and god, it was a good thing that Loki wasn't here right now. "Right, I'll just walk into my first day as your PA, _Hello, my name's Pepper Potts El-Melloi, nice to meet you_."

"The fuck's an El-Melloi?"

"Exactly," Pepper took one more step backwards and raked her hands through her hair, tied loosely and twining around her shoulders. "This isn't your world, Tony. It's mine. You shouldn't have—"

"Well, you should have—"

"Don't pin this on me!" Pepper snarled, voice rising to a pitch that Tony wasn't used to, and fuck, that was one of those things that just came out of his mouth when he didn't mean it to, because something hurt and it was easier to blame something than to take a look at it. "How do you think this make me feel?" Her voice lowered and the anger faded out of her face. The hand holding a binder of papers dropped to her side, and she didn't make any sort of effort to regain her composure. "Tony, you weren't meant to get involved in this. People _die_ for this sort of thing and you…" she trailed off a little and visibly gathered her words, "You don't know what you're doing. What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to—to protect you? Or…" her eyes narrowed again, "Should I just defeat you now? At least that way, it could be easy. You could be safe. You'd be alive in the end of this."

Fuck.

Oh, _fuck_.

Tony's eyes darted to the kitchen, where Loki might still have been or might not be. He didn't even know. Fuck. Pepper was watching him with an unnervingly steady stare, and oh, _fuck_, she was serious.

She was all too serious.

It'd certainly be easy enough, a treacherous part of him said temptingly. Tony didn't want to die, did he? It wasn't like he'd knowingly signed up for this, anyway. It'd be the perfect way of getting the issue of Loki out of his hair _and_ get the cranky dude back his powers, all in one go…still. How could Tony be positive that severing the connection would put things back to the way they should be? What if, somehow, it ended up killing him or something? There was no such thing as a free lunch; there had to be some sort of punishment for losing, and he, surprisingly, couldn't make himself do that.

He was a douchebag but he couldn't do that, not to Loki, who hadn't asked for this.

And after a good long while that still wasn't long enough to have Pepper shifting in discomfort (the girl was made of steel, good _lord_), Tony shook his head.

"I'm…yeah, no. I'm sorry, but I can't."

Pepper's jaw dropped.

"What?" she sputtered, "You can't be serious! Don't be an idiot about this, Tony! It's your _life_." The implications of that one were perfectly clear, thanks, and despite the tension roiling in Tony's gut that he would be drowning later in some very expensive scotch, he couldn't help but be slightly pleased. Oh, she was pissed. Furious to the heavens, really, but she was worried. It came from a good place, even though it was still a goddamn miserable position to be in.

Thing was, it was Loki's life too.

Not that he'd be telling her that.

"I know," Tony began, trying for consoling and failing miserably, ending up somewhere between patronizing and groveling, "But…" Why was he even doing this? Seriously? Yeah, he owed Loki but he probably owed a whole bunch of other people too and didn't bother to pay them back. Didn't really bother to pay Pepper back for all the shit he put her through either, even if it rankled him that she'd kept this a secret from him. "I've got a wish," he said finally.

"What could you possibly want that you can't buy? Or create," Pepper amended, "You can do anything you want without putting yourself into this." Her tone softened and even though Tony knew she was right, he also knew that she was trying to placate him. Most of the time, he would admit that it worked because he always got what he wanted in the end.

Not this time.

"No," Tony insisted and felt the silence in the house stronger than ever, "That's not going to cut it."

Pepper frowned.

"Do you think that I'm going to be able to just sit back and ignore you? I can't just— just pretend that you don't exist or that you're not a contender. Or a rival. This isn't some game, Tony. People wait their whole lives for a chance to complete in the Holy Grail War…I trained my whole life to be considered a worthy competitor. This is your life and you could die. You will if you don't let me take you out of it. Please. "

"…and that kind of takes away the whole point of giving me a choice, ain't it?" Tony blustered, because he was going to _kill_ Loki for making a break for it, _again_, not that he could think of anything he could do to actually make the situation better even if he hadn't. Maybe it was for the best. Or maybe Tony Stark just needed someone to blame.

"The point is that you're an idiot." The redhead blinked back the sudden shininess in her eyes and shook her head, wringing her free hand in the hem of her top. Tony knew that already.

"And where do you get off thinking that this has nothing to do with me?" Tony shed the veneer of flippancy and went sharp, "I could die? _You_ could die! And then what? They find your body just lying somewhere mangled up and shit and then what?" And that was a little more honest than he wanted to get because the last thing he wanted to picture was what came to mind just then, Pepper's broken body just laying somewhere in the city like she was part of the landscape and not his indestructible control freak of an assistant. "You'd just disappear on me like you'd never existed?"

"Tony…"

"You don't get to do that to me," he said steadily and looked her in the eyes; "You don't get to fucking do it. Don't even try."

For exactly two minutes and twenty-one seconds, silence was the only sound, at least until Pepper flinched just a bit, away from Tony, and stared out the window into the sky. Silence, until she tilted her head and asked,

"Where's your servant?"

"Where's yours?"

Pepper lifted her chin and brought her binder up to her chest to hold it like a shield.

"He's outside, waiting for me. Et tu?"

Tony shrugged and looked up at the ceiling, praying that Loki didn't choose this very moment to be an inconvenient jackass and—

"So very sorry to interrupt, master, but you have a guest," JARVIS spoke up, causing both Tony and Pepper to stiffen.

"Who is it and why haven't they made an appointment? Pep, did they make an appointment?" Tony snapped just as Pepper whipped out her blackberry, frowning at whatever she looked up.

"It's a Mister Lukas Spellman, sir, lawyer from Chicago. He's here about a paternity case, says he made an appointment and you missed it." Tony scowled and Pepper just glowered, shoving her PDA back into her pocket.

"He didn't make it with me," she said, all the while casting a dark stink-eye over Tony as if this was all his fault.

"Shall I let him up?"

One glance at Pepper made his mind up and Tony nodded. Anything for a distraction, even if it was for some bogus lawsuit—

The door opened and oh, hell.

Standing in the doorway was Loki, dressed in a suit of dark charcoal with his hair neatly brushed behind his ears. He was wearing glasses too and wore an expression of disdainful contempt, like he was just seconds away from tapping his foot all over Tony's expensive flooring.

"Mr. Stark," he swept forward like an irritated whirlwind _just_ like a lawyer –didn't even bother to shake his hand!— as if that he hadn't been cooing over a scraggly cat in his kitchen not twenty minutes ago. "So good of you to make our appointment, you're exactly as reliable as Barbra described."

That just wasn't fair but what was Tony going to do, exactly, give it away?

Pepper gave no sign of thinking for a moment that Loki was anyone but who he said he was and Tony resigned himself to being mercilessly trolled by his servant. His servant who had a way too elaborate story that he clearly relished in dishing every false detail, down to all of Tony's misdeeds and emotional anguish that dear Barbra had suffered from his neglect, and how if he didn't mind, he had the name of a lab that had been so very kind as to make him an appointment for the paternity test…

And fuck you, Loki, Tony thought and watched Pepper's face get darker and darker as the story got longer and longer, and he saw her hands twitch like she wanted to strangle him. Good, he thought vindictively, Tony wanted to strangle him too. It worked, though, and Tony followed Loki's lead because if anyone had experience in pulling one over on others, it would be him.

He also hadn't waltzed in there and declared exactly who he was, and Tony could appreciate subtlety, just didn't usually appreciate it in people.

"Look," Pepper cut in and caught a sharp malachite stare for her trouble, "If you want to hash this out, you'll need to make a proper appointment, with _me_. And then you'll need to wait for the go-ahead from _our_ people, and then we'll get back to you. Now if you don't mind, Mr. Stark and I still have unfinished business—"

"Oh, by the way," Loki added as an afterthought, "Does the scruffy, unsavory fellow outside belong to you?"

Pepper froze and stared at him suspiciously.

"That would depend on what he's doing."

Loki examined his fingernails and buffed them delicately on his jacket.

"I believe that last I checked, he was preparing to urinate on one of the rose bushes in the front yard."

Oh, Tony _hated_ him right now. Still, it was enough that he dropped Pepper's jaw and her anger was replaced with a horror that he might have laughed at had he not been feeling the same horror. His rose bushes. His _rose bushes_.

…he had rose bushes?

"Oh god, I'm going to kill him," Pepper muttered under her breath and gathered up all of her things in frenzy before casting a glare over Loki. Loki, unrepentant Loki. "You're coming with me, out." Loki looked affronted, just like a lawyer who wasn't getting what he wanted, and nevertheless resentfully followed her out to leave Tony in silence. Until a voice piped up behind him, anyway.

"Well, that's simply fascinating."

Tony whipped around and there was Loki (another Loki?!) languishing on the couch like he'd been there the entire time, Sindr curled up happily in his lap. His hands stroked her idly and he seemed deep in thought as he ignored Tony's sputtering entirely.

"What the—how the—"

Green eyes looked up and Loki smiled and waggled long fingers at him like it should be obvious. Ass. Tony stomped over to his bar and poured himself a shot of whiskey, knocking it back without any hesitation.

"Generally, a strong master should be able to sense a servant, especially if the servant is strong as well," Loki began in the lecturing tone, "However, there are loopholes in the class of casters that allow me to shield myself. And assassins, but that ought to be quite obvious enough, even for you."

"What, and you couldn't spare a little hoodoo for me too?"

Instead of twitching in irritation like he would have usually, Loki simply shook his head and folded his hands over his cat's shoulders.

"It is a different kind of magic," he said and _almost_ sounded apologetic. Tony might have laughed at the idea of Loki ever being apologetic if he hadn't been so genuinely interested in what he had to say, "I am connected to you and to the Grail, but Miss Potts would have sensed me on the basis of my magic alone. The masters of the Grail War are connected as well in a way and in order to shield you, I would have to rip out your connection to Miss Potts and to the Grail itself. Doing such a thing would have…consequences," Loki rolled the word around in his mouth and Tony poured himself another drink. "I may get around the rules when it comes to myself simply because of what I am but for you, I'm afraid that it is nearly impossible."

Tony sighed and sank down to the floor again. He picked up and put down bits of circuitry, chunks of wire and screwdrivers, put them back down again without doing anything with them.

"So what did your, uh, doppelganger do?" Because Pepper wasn't an idiot; she'd be up here in five seconds flat if she caught sight of Lukas Spellman winking out the way Loki so enjoyed doing. "If it was actually a doppelganger and not actually you and I'm talking to a really good hologram or something right now." Loki pursed his lips and considered the statement with a thoughtful look on his face.

"Lukas Spellman got into his automobile and drove away. It is a complex series of spells. Simple enough if one knows what they're doing; the tricky part is, of course, the transition from not-being to being and back. My double is more like a simulacrum in a way," with a wave of his hand, Loki summoned up his double again (a triple?), still clad in that grey suit. "It is not capable of independent action but instead works off of a series of situational commands that I have written into the spell, as well as manual command by me."

"I speak English and I speak engineer. Pick one."

Loki sighed again and sent the double away.

"Which means that in essence, they work off of my own reactions but when necessary, I may give direct orders."

"So you code your own software…does magic work off of C++ or Perl?" Tony joked and then went serious, "That what you meant earlier by spreading out your resources?" Tony recalled. He remembered that conversation well, mostly because he spent most of it annoyed.

"Quite. The doubles are simple enough; I've been working with them for centuries. They require more concentration than power and let us be honest, brainpower is the last thing I need to be worrying about." Smug. Egotistical. Ass. Not that Tony had any experience in being one of those himself, nope. "The shielding is the issue more than anything. But it means," and here Loki lifted his eyes, "It means that even with you not being able to provide me with the power I need, I can…" he paused and began again, "I can be of some use."

And since when had Loki cared about being of use? Seriously. Tony'd have put good money on Loki going _out of his way_ to be as useless as humanly possible but it seemed…maybe he'd been wrong. Or maybe Loki was just a giant ass. Honestly, it was kind of hard to tell with him.

"So, _Spellman_? Seriously?"

Loki frowned and raised a brow.

"Problem?"

"Uh, yeah. Way to be obvious," Tony chided and Loki sighed, lacing his hands again. He had the Tony-knows-nothing-at-all face, which was still annoying but not surprising. Still, Loki was no idiot, there had to be some reason why he'd chosen the most obvious name in the history of all obvious names. "Nothing says _Hey, I'm a wizard!_ like giving yourself a ridiculously obvious moniker."

Idly, Loki tapped a fingertip to his chin. The annoyance had fled his face and he slipped into what Tony recognized as one more teaching lecture. Well… he _did_ want to be taught magic after all, even if it was happening about thirty years late.

"There is power in all things," he began, "But especially in names. One does not simply call themselves by the name of someone they cannot become. I could no more be Anthony Stark than you could be Loki, though it would be little effort to take your face or your skin. The name, even a false name, must reflect the one you wish to be. A name is a delicate thing and must be chosen with care. A sorcerer is always a sorcerer and must take a name to suit."

"Huh," Tony mused, "Didn't know there were so many rules to it."

"Do you not have certain parameters that you must work with when you design your machines?" Loki asked with genuine curiosity, "Even if they are yours, there are still rules that you must follow from the simplest to the most intricate, are there not?"

And Tony thought about that and eventually nodded.

"I suppose there are," he said at last and the two of them fell into a quiet that was more comfortable than awkward and oh, _god_, was Tony actually getting used to the guy? Crap. "So…what, is there something special about my name specifically? If you can't take it."

"It is not in _the_ name but _your_ name. You create its meaning and that is what gives it power."

"You know what? You keep your hocus-pocus, I'll stick to things that make sense. …Was there actually a scruffy dude peeing in my front yard?" Tony asked eventually in an effort to ignore the uncomfortable revelation that Loki was even _more_ complicated than he had originally thought. Ugh. And there was Disdainful Stare #7. Loki looked a heartbeat away from rubbing his temples.

"Sadly, yes," he replied with a snort, "If I were to wager a guess, I would say that he was Miss Potts' servant."

"What'd he look like?"

Tony's brain instantly jumped to the things that _he _could do, and it may have been a long shot but if this guy was supposed to be a hero, he might be in the history books. Loki had his spells and charms and machinations; Tony had databases and the internet at his fingertips. Together, they might actually be able to do this. Maybe.

"Short," Loki mused, "Short and broad. Very dark, too…he had the build of a soldier. Leather jacket and the dingiest pair of trousers I've ever seen in my life."

"Details, Lolo, give me something _useful_. Give me something I can work with. Tattoos, birthmarks… distinguishable shit."

Loki frowned at him.

"He really did appear a dirty, unshaven…" Loki froze.

"What is it? You totally just thought of something," Tony prodded.

"I didn't have a long time to observe him and this might not be relevant but I did notice that there was… well, he had a series of scars along the base of his knuckles. All fingers minus the thumbs, both hands. He may have had tattoos as well but he was so covered up that I couldn't tell."

"There are some weird ass scars, yeah," Tony muttered partly to Loki, mostly to himself, "Knuckle scars…the fuck gives you knuckle scars on every finger?"

Loki shrugged.

"I can think of several things, but they are of Asgard and not of this realm. And had he been of Asgard, I would have recognized him no matter the clothing or skin he so wore" Loki grew silent and pensive then, considering, and chucked Sindr under the chin even when she bit down on his finger out of sheer contrariness, biting down even as she purred. Loki just let her chew on him.

Cat people, seriously. As if Tony needed any other indication that Loki was crazy.

Nevertheless, that was something to think about and Tony got to his feet. Loki glanced up at him.

"Okay," he said, "I think that if we're gonna do this, we need to be more proactive about finding the other players. I don't like that Cap's master knew all about me even if he didn't know you, and even though Pep was an accident…" Tony Stark didn't like being surprised. "I'll dig into all the major magic families –everything's on the internet!- and make up a list of the most likely candidates, as well as look into our mystery man, see if there's anyone notable with knuckle scars."

"And me?" Loki asked after deliberation and Tony wondered if he was trolling him again but…fuck it, what could it hurt? If he wanted to be helpful, Tony certainly wasn't going to stop him.

"You keep working that 007 mojo you've got going on. Take the spare phone in the side table and I'll let you know when I get a lead and you can take a look; I can't approach the other masters without giving myself away but you can. I guess for now…" he did feel bad about this, sort of, but not bad enough to not do it, "See if you can tail Pepper and get a readout on her servant. If that doesn't work out, try and find Cap and find out who his _master_ is. Shouldn't be too hard; how many WWII era kewpie dolls can possibly be running around Malibu?"

"You don't want me to answer that."

Tony threw his hands up and walked away with a tossed back,

"You do that; I'm going to go marinate in my lab and see what 4chan has to say. Never underestimate the power of obsessive nerds." When he turned around, he turned around just in time to see Loki crack off a snappy salute and wink out of sight without so much as a goodbye. Not that he expected one. Honestly, it was more than he had expected for him to make the offer in the first place. As he left the room, Tony snagged his practice candle off of the coffee table and brought it with him downstairs, lighting it as he settled down in his chair to start his own mission.

Might as well do what he could to help too.

* * *

"I cannot even _believe_ that you did that," Pepper muttered under her breath and unlocked the door. She didn't expect an apology, she barely expected a reply, and those expectations were made true when her servant's only response was to snort a little and push past her into her apartment, ignoring her dark mood to flop onto the couch. "Saber, I'm serious."

"What's it even matter?" he replied, unsheathing his claws and tapping them idly on the wood of the coffee table. "It's your fault anyway for takin' so long."

"Oh, please, it was barely twenty minutes. I already manage one man-child in my life; I don't need to babysit you too." Pepper shook her head and strode into the kitchen to gather the materials for coffee. God only knew she needed it. "In front of a _lawyer_ too. Don't even get me started on that guy. Who does he even think he is?"

Saber let out a sigh and rolled over.

At least he fit on her couch, all five feet of him.

"You're getting dirt all over the cushions," Pepper called and it was with the speed of the most resentful that he removed his boots and tossed them over to the threshold of the front door. "Thank you. I'd rather you lose the jacket but I'll take what I can get."

"Whatever," Saber sat up and eyed the window. "You get a look at Stark's servant at least?"

Pepper came out of the kitchen with two mugs and a handful of sugar packets. Just thinking about that encounter made her annoyed. Not just the thing with Spellman but all of it, too. Tony…god. He wasn't cut out for this. He was going to die, she was sure of it, but Pepper couldn't ignore the way her stomach had twisted unpleasantly when he asked what he was expected to do if she didn't survive.

Pepper was no idiot; she knew full well that masters were about as likely to die as the servants in every Grail War. It all depended on who was summoned, how bloodthirsty they were…how bloodthirsty each master was. Pepper knew from childhood that eventually she would be a contender for the Grail; it was ingrained in her that she was to be the best, to train her best, to be fully prepared to kill anyone who stood in her way.

It was her duty as an El-Melloi, but duty and nature ran afoul when it came to Tony. It always did, no matter the situation.

Could she look him in the face and kill him if it came down to it? No. Some masters had little problem just sending their servants out to do battle without them (it wasn't unheard of in the slightest) but that had never sat well with Pepper. It was her duty as an El-Melloi to win the Grail, but it was her duty as a decent human being to go through every single battle with her servant, to help him, to win with him and lose with him. Hs victories would be hers as well as his defeats.

It was only cowards and fools who did anything less. That's what Dad had always said when he pulled her aside sometimes after her lessons, when she came out of them frustrated and hurt. It didn't matter what Grandfather thought; would she be a coward or would she be one of the brave ones?

Would Tony be a coward or would he be one of the brave ones?

"No," she answered finally, "There was no one else in the house but Tony until Spellman showed up, I'm sure of it. I would have sensed him if there had been. We already know about Lancer and Archer—"

"And Deadpool," Saber offered helpfully from the couch and accepted the coffee she handed him.

"_Fucking_ Deadpool," Pepper grumbled and chugged her coffee, "That guy drives me nuts."

"You and everyone else."

"But yes," she carried on as if she'd never been interrupted, "It's got to be Assassin, Caster, Berserker, or Rider. I think we can probably rule out Berserker; there's a certain quality there that needs to be present in the master that Tony won't be able to pull off."

"What quality?"

Pepper examined her nails.

"The master's got to be half-crazy themselves. That's what Berserker does to you. And while Tony's nuts…no. The only kind of crazy he is is the crazy he's always been," Pepper told him and got a slightly disgruntled hmph in reply. Well, she didn't expect much more than that, anyway. Not from him. The worst part about it all was that through the whole thing, Tony had simply been Tony. He'd been surprised, certainly, but not like he would have been had the whole thing come out of left field.

Someone had made this make sense to him.

Pepper had been preparing for this since she was very small, because Deadpool had always been around (always, _always_, that giant asshole of a creeper who was always doing terrible things behind her back in all of the family Christmas cards) since before she could even remember, so it had always made perfect sense to her. About sixty years ago, Granddad summoned Deadpool for the last war (and lost, but no one ever talked about that if they wanted to avoid a lecture) and the guy had just never left. Some of her earliest memories in fact had been of the police trying to take 'Uncle Deadpool' in to the station on kidnapping charges, and Pepper herself being 'comforted' with cookies and juice and a good therapist, at least until her father arrived to straighten things out.

And then she'd turned twelve and he'd started ruining her life, but that was just one more thing that no one talked about unless they wanted a lecture.

It was always harder for the masters who hadn't been born into it, who didn't have the years of conditioning and the prep and the training. Pepper was the last person to be able to talk about humanizing her servant, but she had the knowledge and the strength to handle it. It was always easier for those who could distance themselves from the fact that they were playing with someone's second chance, to think of it not as a partnership but a system of command. Pepper couldn't talk about sentiment but those who let it take them over…they were the weak ones and almost always the first to die. They either died…

Or they won.

Which category would Tony fall into?

Pepper rubbed her temples and tried to put the thoughts out of her head. There was no point in agonizing over it right this second; she had work to do in about five conflicting angles that would take all of her attention and the last thing she needed to be worrying about was her friend/boss running around half-cocked. That wasn't to say that she wouldn't be thinking about it anyway, but it was a nice sentiment. Her gaze drifted over to the man on her couch and Pepper traced the command seals that laced over her wrist.

"We'll deal with it when it happens," she decided, "At any rate, I'm famished. Logan, would you prefer curry or your goat still alive and bleating?"

Saber glared at her.

"_Logan_ would like you to quit callin' him that. _Wolverine_ wants a burger."

"_Wolverine_ has already had three burgers since two this afternoon. Try again."

Saber flicked her off and Pepper brushed it off without blinking. She had spent years dragging a one Tony Stark out of the recesses of his man cave kicking and screaming after a few too many nights of partying. She could more than handle a fun-sized, cranky Canadian with extra-large claws.

"To hell with you, lady."

"You try being Tony Stark's PA and then talk to me about hell, buddy boy." Pepper didn't even look up from where she'd plucked a short stack of takeout menus from a folder in the side drawer, flipping through one of them and putting the rest back from whence they came. "Hmmm, pizza sounds good too…"

"Would you quit talking about food and be fuckin' serious?" Logan snapped and in a split second the claws were out, slicing through the papers she held and stopping just millimeters from Pepper's face.

"Move the claws or lose the claws," Pepper spoke up. Gone was the mellow tone of the long-suffering, replaced with something hard and stone-cold, and she neither flinched away from the blades right in front of her eyes nor attempted to push them away herself. Logan froze, looked tempted to push it, and then changed his mind. The claws retracted and he pulled his hand away. Pepper nodded and let the power and tension drain out of her frame, eyeing him reproachfully. "_Don't_ do that again."

There was no apology –because no, she knew better than to expect those too- and Pepper just picked up the two halves of a menu on the floor.

"Pizza, then."

* * *

The candles flickered and threw shadows on the ratty walls of Peter's efficiency. The boy himself was on his knees in the middle of the room, putting the finishing touches with his fingertips to the summoning circle on the floor. They came away smudged with red and he wiped them on his pants, satisfied that he'd gotten everything correct. It was best, he knew, for both the master and the servant that the circle be drawn by hand.

Everything was right, Peter decided.

It'd be a cliché to say that it was a dark and stormy night, for while it was night and it was certainly dark, it was a clear one. Had he been given a choice in the matter, storms might have helped matters. Either way, seventy-two hours of wakefulness later, Peter would take about anything in exchange for being able to sleep. Maybe doing incredibly dangerous magic rituals on a steady supply of triple-strength coffee and Super Guarana Ice wasn't the best idea he'd ever had?

…Whatever.

The room was small and he'd pushed both the shabby couch and the coffee table off to the side until they brushed the wall in order to make room for the circle in the middle of his efficiency; it was drawn on a flat sheet of plywood in order to be disposable and meaningless later. No need to make this harder on anyone than it had to be. Or, he amended, to make himself look any crazier than he probably already did.

He got enough looks at school just for being on scholarship; he didn't need to for everyone else in the building to think he was 'that crazy guy on the 42nd floor'.

Normally, a catalyst would be placed in the middle of the circle but those only went to summoners who had the influence or the guile to get one on their own. No, Peter Parker would put his luck on the line this time (against his better judgment, honestly) and summon blind. It was enough of a scandal that he'd been considered worthy in the first place, that he'd fought his way to the top for the opportunity to compete in the Holy Grail War.

His classmates had been green with envy, had whispered and hissed behind his back, and all Peter could think was how nice it would be to get away from all of them, at least until this was over.

Alright.

He took a step back and extended a hand outwards, towards the circle.

The arm was an extension of the body and therefore an extension of self, his professor's voice said in his head, calm and boring. Extend yourself and you become a line that wraps and pulls, that calls.

And then, if he was lucky, someone would answer his call.

"I hereby propose," he began from memory, "Thou shalt come under my command, and thy sword shall control my fate." The words had been practiced over and over again until they showed up in his dreams, until they came like good morning and good night and thank you. "Aided by the summons of the Holy Grail, if thou dost accede to this will and reason, answer me. I hereby swear. I am all that is good in the eternal world. I am the disposer of evil in the eternal world. Thou, clad with the great trinity, come forth from the circle of constraint, guardian of the heavens!"

The circle blazed and Peter closed his eyes and even then, he saw spots through his eyelids from the flare. The whole building shook and he heard a snapping crack and then…

Quiet.

Tentatively, he peered through the slot of his fingers and for a few seconds saw nothing but a blurry figure standing in the space where his circle had been, facing away from him. The candles had gone out and the snapping sound had been the cracking of the plywood; it now lay in about seven pieces on the floor, pressed into the carpet underneath…

Black boots.

Blinking blearily, Peter started from the bottom up.

Joining black boots were black pants joined by a shapely, black fabric-covered rear, followed by a thin waist, followed by red hair that brushed shoulders, followed by…

His summon servant turning around to look him straight in the eyes.

"Are you my master?" she demanded at once, crunching off of the remains of Peter's circle to approach him without hesitation. He goggled at her for a few moments, slack-jawed, before nodding.

"I…I-I am," he stammered, "I'm Peter Parker." Not looking anywhere lower than her chin, he ordered himself firmly, nope. He might not live to see morning otherwise. He might not, regardless. "You're…"

"Black Widow," the woman said, "Assassin. You may call me either."

Peter nodded, still silent, and brought his hand up to examine the seals he'd been given. Three interlocking designs in a shape that reminded him of a spider were etched onto back of his palm, hot and scarlet against pale skin.

"Assassin," he repeated, "It's…it's nice to meet you."

"I'd like to say the same," Assassin said with just the slightest bit of edge to her voice, "Except that your home leaves much to be desired."

Peter looked around at the slightly discolored walls, the hideous couch he'd picked up on the cheap almost solely because it was long enough for him to stretch out on comfortably, the bare bones kitchen and the flimsy door that led to the only bedroom. Okay, so it was small and kind of really crappy and way too expensive for what it was, but it wasn't like the kid on the scholarship could actually afford to live in Malibu and he already felt bad enough for letting his aunt and uncle pay what they were already.

It was an honor to be chosen by the Grail, he knew, but right now, all he could feel was shame and an embarrassed flush rising high on his cheeks.

"If you'd like to pay my rent for a nicer place, be my guest," he finally replied, realizing with a sinking feeling that all the studying and books and lectures in the world didn't actually prepare him for what he'd gotten himself into. "It's, uh, it's kind of late. Let's just figure out what the plan's going to be in the morning; I have a few ideas—"

"In that case, I will do the liberty of giving myself orders and track down the competition," Black Widow interrupted and flicked her fingers at him, all silken knowing and condescension, "You go to sleep like a good boy, I will see you in the morning with some viable information." And then she had the gall to just fade out into the blackness and Peter made a face.

A good boy. Like a _good boy_.

He felt like he'd just been patted on the head and given a milk bone for his trouble.

Still, he couldn't help but think as he ambled towards bed, it could always be worse.

* * *

Loki was asleep on his couch.

Not only was Loki asleep on his couch, but Loki was asleep on his couch tucked up into a surprisingly small ball for a very tall guy, curled around his massive, ratty cat. Magical conductor, his _ass_, Loki just wanted to bring the monster home. Nevertheless, the thing was asleep and purring and Loki looked happy enough to be asleep as well, having made a home for himself on the sofa almost immediately after dinner and dropping off to sleep, irate over his own lack of progress in things.

He'd grumbled something about the tiredness earlier, about his body overcompensating for Tony's pathetic lack of magical reserves (Tony'd stopped listening about then), and now here they were. He didn't _have_ to be here, not really. He had plenty of other things he could be doing (or plenty of other people) but somehow, he found himself dropping a blanket over Loki's shoulders just like he'd done several times before, making sure to not cover the cat. The man twitched a little and scrunched in tighter but relaxed again, the fingers that had been subconsciously running through dark fur tangling in the blanket and pulling it closer around him.

"You're still an ass, you know," Tony said to him, remembering the conversation that had gone down when Loki had come back. It started out badly with the fact that Loki had very clearly been frustrated and annoyed and had only spiraled out from there because Tony couldn't help but poke at things that grabbed his attention. Pissy or not, no one could deny that Loki was certainly attention-grabbing.

Still, he probably hadn't helped matters by threatening to send Loki to go stand in corner. By force if he had to.

…He _had_ to quit doing that. He'd muttered an apology under his breath but the damage had already been done and Loki had simply glared at him and winked out of sight even before giving the bare bones report he had. It probably also didn't help that five minutes wasn't enough time for anyone to cool their temper before being dragged back, much less anyone who was more like Tony than the man himself wanted to admit. He hadn't thought about it at the time but now he wished that he had, if only to save the both of them the stress and hard words that came after.

At the very least, he desperately needed to remember that, for all practical purposes, those seals on the back of his hand may as well not exist. Because regardless of what he might say in temper, Tony Stark had no intention of using them (much less for something so insignificant as being annoying, which both of them came by quite honestly), and if he ever wanted Loki to believe him when he said he wouldn't, he had to quit threatening him with them when it suited him.

The guy didn't trust him as it was and Tony wasn't helping make it easier.

Sindr looked up and chirped at him.

"Hush up, Sinny," Tony told her, "You wanna wake up crankymage?" No response. "That's what I thought."

There was something unnerving about this. It didn't matter that he was a contender for an item only thought of as a myth, that he was embroiled in a life or death war that set his blood burning with anticipation, that the man on his couch was no lover or even a close friend but his supposed servant . And yet, despite all that, the Norse god of mischief was asleep on his couch and Tony was putting a blanket over him. Loki had brought a cat home for no other reason than he wanted to and Tony...Tony had _let_ him.

It was so domestic that his skin crawled and for a second, he seriously considered checking himself for hives.

And because Tony Stark was a man who was always thinking, he couldn't help but follow the trail his thoughts led, because if he was treating his servant like some sort of roommate, what did everyone else do? What did Pepper think about all this? Would she cover up her servant or leave him to the cold?

And here was Loki, sleeping on his couch.

"Christ. I've got to get out of here," Tony muttered to himself and stepped back like that would let him step out of the situation. It didn't work, of course, but the sentiment was there regardless.

_I would suggest you avoid going out on your own_, Loki had told him a few days back, _There will be those less scrupulous than you, who will think nothing of sending his servant after a vulnerable master. All the bodyguards in the world won't do any good if I am not there to prevent your death._ Oh, there'd been plenty of derision in there, but Tony had been all too aware of what lay below the surface, something that bubbled and fizzed a little too much like anxiety for his peace of mind.

It'd be too easy to ignore his warnings like this but at the same time…

Well, Tony sometimes acted like he had a death wish but he had never been stupid. If there hadn't been a legitimate threat, he was pretty sure that Loki would probably have just told him to go play in the street and have fun.

Fuck.

So instead of doing what he wanted (go out for a drink and hopefully get laid), Tony settled down on a cushion on the floor and set about to watching _Finding Nemo _on the holoscreen.

Loki slept through Nemo being scooped up and taken to Sydney, and he slept through Tony quoting the _fish are friends, not food_ speech, and he slept through the current surfing and Mount Wannahockaloogie and the jellyfish swarm. He didn't so much as move until Dory began speaking whale until he twitched, jerking hard enough to wake Sindr and send her hopping down off the couch.

Tony dragged his attention away from the film after taking a second to pause it, ready with either a greeting or a smart remark depending on how grumpy the guy was going to be when he woke up…

And froze.

Loki wasn't awake, not at all, but appeared instead to be slipping into the throes of a nightmare. Gone was the twitch that had gotten his attention in the first place, replaced with a thrashing that couldn't mean anything good.

"Hey," the words were out before Tony could pull them back, "Loki, you okay?"

No response –_duh_, obviously— and Tony scooted closer on the carpet until he was at the edge of the sofa, reaching out a hand to shake his shoulder because he was not that much of a douche—

"No," Loki murmured quietly, eyes scrunched tightly closed, "No, no, no—!" And then he whispered something that sounded distinctly like _Thor_ but Tony couldn't be sure because he'd shut his mouth and bit his lip to bleeding.

"Whoa, whoa," Tony told him and got to his feet to lean over the prone form on his sofa, "Wake up!" This time he didn't hesitate to reach out and touch, squeezing muscle and bone in a firm grip that had Loki's eyes snapping open immediately. For a good five seconds, all Tony could do was stare because he'd never seen Loki look so incoherent before and there was something about that look that made him feel just a little bit sick to his stomach. There was a shine to those green eyes that couldn't have been anything but unshed tears (that didn't fall, thank _fuck_, because Tony Stark was amazing but there were some things he didn't think he could handle) and he just stared up at Tony like he didn't know him.

Underneath Tony's hand, he shook.

"Loki," he said, "Hey, snap out of it. It's okay. You're okay."

Tony was a liar because Loki was not okay.

"You need to help me out here. Blink once for no, twice for yes? I don't even—come _on,_ Loki. Snap out of it!" He insisted and shook his shoulder, harder this time. "Come on! _Loki_!"

Without warning, Loki dragged in a trembling heaving breath and Tony literally saw the sense creep back into his eyes, though it didn't make him feel better in the slightest, because now instead of looking dead, Loki just looked upset, afraid, and miserable.

The fear was what got him and it was what made him keep holding onto him even though technically he didn't need to anymore. Loki continued to shiver long after Tony was sure that he was himself again and Tony continued to hover over him.

"Stark…" was the first word out of Loki's mouth and Tony felt something tight loosen from somewhere in his chest.

"Welcome back," Tony informed him like he'd done nothing more than trip outside on the sidewalk, "You gonna live?"

Loki closed his eyes like he couldn't stand to look at him and rolled over to press his face into the back of the couch. He was still half underneath the blanket that Tony had draped over him earlier.

"I'm fine," he murmured. His voice was muffled by fabric and even then it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself more than anyone else. "I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine." Tony frowned speculatively and eyed the cat staring at him from underneath the table. Without ado, he reached down and picked the cat up and set her inside the space between Loki and the couch.

"Here's your beast," he told him and watched Sindr get comfortable and start kneading the area around Loki's ribs. Loki didn't speak and Tony wondered whether he was making an honest attempt to smother himself to death on his own sofa. A noise that sounded suspiciously like a sniff met his ears and he closed his eyes, sighing. Dory was still bright and blue on the holoscreen and instead of sinking back down to the floor, Tony settled himself onto the cushion next to Loki's head, careful not to touch or crowd him. "Don't worry," he said quietly, "I'm not going to ask you what that was about, okay?"

Loki stayed tense and wound even with the cat and Tony turned the movie back on. Dory went right back to speaking whale and if, about ten minutes in, Tony's hand found itself carding through dark hair, detangling, tangling, then detangling again, neither of them were going to say anything about it. And if, about fifteen minutes after, Loki let the tension drain out of him and let himself relax into the touch and the warm press of Tony's thigh and the story of a missing clown fish, then that was no one's business either.

* * *

AN2: Thank you so much for reading! 3 If you have anything to say about this, be it praise, critiques, questions, I'd love to hear them! This is one of the more intricate things I've ever written and I know that a lot of you aren't familiar with the TYPE-MOON part of this crossover, so it'd be good to know that I'm not being excessively confusing.


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